Album Review: Napalm Death - "Apex Predator - Easy Meat"

Now I know what you’re thinking – another Napalm Death record, it probably sounds like every other Napalm Death record.  But that’s not why we’re here, and that’s not why we go through these exercises.

Napalm Death returns with “Apex Predator – Easy Meat,” their fifteenth studio record and they pick up on pretty much the same page that was last heard on “Utilitarian.”  The same lineup, together now for some twenty years and headed by vocalist Barney Greenway, gathers again to deliver more of the same; crushing riffs, belligerent vocals and aural punishment doled out in bite-size songs.

Let’s cut to the chase.  Here’s what makes “Apex Predator – Easy Meat” work: Napalm Death can actually write some songs.  That probably seems incredibly obvious, but in grindcore the ability to compose pieces featuring prominent rhythm and a sense of direction isn’t always a given.  Undaunted, Napalm Death spins together the usual brand of pulverizing destruction, but done with some rhythmic appeal and sense of the moment.  “How the Years Condemn” is a pretty catchy tune by grindcore standards, and works so well because this group of veterans has never subscribed to the banal idea that more noise is necessarily better. 

More than that, Greenway and company can actually make their songs encompass two or three parts, which not only is an accomplishment when very few of these entries are more than three and a half minutes, but is a complete mystery to all of their contemporaries.  Think of your favorite songs – how many of them sound exactly the same for their duration?  Take as an example “Cesspits.”  Sure, it’s pure thrashing grind from beginning to end, but there’s a pretty clear intro riff (which is convincingly supercharged, by the way,) a drum-filled bridge and a hammering outro.  Certainly, this might not be the classical definition of thematic variance, but the pieces are all there.  That little flair for actual thoughtful composition is what separates the career of Napalm Death with damn near every band in their field.

Perhaps neither nor there, there are several selections on this record which feel a lot longer than they are, which is saying something for a cut that might be under three minutes.  The title track, weighing in at a comparatively heavy three forty-five, feels like a marathon slog.  I can appreciate the keep-it-simple songwriting and complete lack of pretention on the band’s part, but a fair number of these tracks still descend into the predictable miasma of grind without hesitation.  Clearly this formula has worked for Napalm Death for a long time, so the flavor must fit somebody’s taste, but it’s plainly not for everyone.

Quick aside – a nod to the down-to-earth songwriting of the band.  For whatever reason, no matter how imagined, it’s way easier to get through a bunch of noisy tracks called “Dear Slum Landlord” and “Stubborn Stains” than it is whatever convoluted goddamned thing like ‘Tortured Remains of the Fishmonger’s Anguished Intestines” most of these bands come up with.  I can’t relate to that shit, but I have had a crappy landlord.  Game, set, match, Napalm Death.

It seems strange that the band who invented a genre nearly thirty years ago with “Scum” can still be the standard-bearing vanguard for that genre, but it nevertheless remains true.  As a corollary, that may say something about the other bands in the genre, but that’s neither here nor there.  With a lineup seasoned by years of tours and recording, Napalm Death remains confident in their sound and strong in delivery.  “Apex Predator – Easy Meat” doesn’t rewrite the definition of grindcore, but it does re-establish the benchmark.  Fans of Napalm Death will find a lot to like.